Forex Market and Locations

Forex Market and Locations

The forex market is a seamless 24 hour market which is open 5 days per week. At 5 pm Sunday, New York time, trading begins as markets open in Sydney and Singapore. At 7 pm the Tokyo market followed, opens by London at 2 am, and finally New York at 8 am. (Time is based on New York time) As a trader, this allows one to respond to favorable/unfavorable news by trading immediately. The trading of forex takes pace around the world and is also not located in any one central location. Deals are finished between a range of traders, from banks to managed funds to individual traders.

Measurements of the Forex Market

Forex trades approximately US$1.85 trillion per day and is the most liquid market in this field. It requires the NY Sock Exchange 3 MONTHS to trade the same USD value when the forex trades each and every day so that it is the most important and most liquid market in the field. This market can absorb trading volume and transaction sizes that dwarf the capacity of the other market. Should you decide compare this towards the US$30 billion per day futures market, it becomes dear about the futures markets provide only limited liquidity. The forex marketplace is always liquid meaning positions can be liquidated and sop orders executed without slippage.

Brokers and Market Makers

Market Maker – the one consistently makes two way prices, providing both an offer and bid. Unlike market, brokers makers trade their capital
Broker – a person who matches purchase and sell orders in return for a commission. The bid and supply prices are those of the business participants and never regarding the broker.
Currency Pairs
 Traders can trade a variety of currency pairs, limited only through which pairs each broker provides.

Major currency pairs are usually the USD pairs for instance EURUSD GBPUSD AUDUSD USDJPY USDCHF

Example 

Cross currency pairs are pairs which normally do not involve the USD like for example :

EURGBP EURJPY GBPJPY EURCHF

EUR= Euro, GBP= Pound, CHF= Swiss Franc, JPY=Yen, AUD= Aussie $